Is Yelp Manipulating User Reviews?
Is Yelp.com manipulating user reviews to coerce small businesses to advertise with the site? That's what some business owners in the San Francisco area are claiming, and they've taken those complaints to both the East Bay Express and the student-run newspaper the Daily Californian. Yelp denies these allegations and says its sales staff does not have the power to either move or delete reviews.
Founded in 2004, Yelp is a popular Web site that lets users post reviews about local businesses in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom. PCWorld recently featured Yelp in two articles: "The 100 Best Products of 2008" and "10 Web Sites That Will Matter in 2009."
The Allegations
The East Bay Express claims it uncovered at least a dozen instances of seemingly questionable sales tactics employed by Yelp. One of the biggest complaints was that aggressive sales people would offer to "do something" about the negative reviews appearing at the top of a business' profile page on Yelp. The sales rep would say that for $299 per month, bad reviews would be removed from the top of the page. The business owners claimed that almost every time they received a sales call--and there were many of them--bad reviews would be among the top reviews of their page on Yelp.
: